Pinus pinaster
An armored conifer that heals in sun and shields the active plant from the bench, playing a native wall or an invasive attacker.
Maritime pine is a woody Conifer that fights as an armored wall: real defense from the start, a sun-fed heal, and a canopy trait that projects a shield onto whichever plant is fighting. It is native to Africa and Europe and invasive in Oceania, so the arena can cast it either way — as a native buffer or as an invasive attacker. It is one of the sturdier cards here, better as an anchor than as a finisher.
Its starter attack, Raysteal, unlocks at level 1 and costs 2 Sun, dealing about 31 damage as a native and 34 as an invasive, and it splashes damage onto the enemy bench. The free once-per-battle ability, Boreal Establishment, comes in at level 25: Takes hold in cold ground: heal 35%, and the foe can't heal. It sharpens the plant's own attack. The advanced attack, Needle Point, unlocks at level 40 for 6 Sun (42 native / 44 invasive), mending the plant while pinning the target in place. Most pines sit below level 40, where only the starter is available. No move carries an initiative rider, so it never seizes a turn; see Moves.
Maritime pine keeps two always-on traits. Photosynthesis arrives at full strength on the level 10 riser and heals the plant in sun, firing about 60% of the time. Network arrives on the level 68 riser: as a canopy tree it projects a gold Sun overshield bar onto your active plant from the bench, adding a reliable layer of protection to whoever is fighting. See Abilities.
Maritime pine carries no trait keywords — no thorns, no toxin chemistry — so nothing extra punishes an attacker for hitting it. Its growth habit is terrestrial, so it is not eligible for a Moss Pole. Non-toxic: no contact recoil, no poison rider. As a native, defensive field gear such as a Cloche or a Ca/Mg amendment stacks on its already-solid armor; as an invasive, offensive gear presses its damage.
At level 40 it reads 140 HP as a native and 122 as an invasive, with ATK of 22 native versus 30 invasive — native ATK 22 rises to invasive ATK 29, a solid edge. DEF is 20, in the conifer band, giving it genuine armor that most cards here lack. Its tempo is a quick start and a slower cruise: turn 1 runs on its initiative (23) and later turns on its lower SPD (18), so it leads off the mark but is out-paced in a long fight. Retreat costs 19 Sun. As a native it gains a +15% HP cushion and, while benched, projects an HP overshield onto your active; as an invasive it pays Faustian self-damage to its own bench on each damaging attack and concedes 2 prizes when knocked out. See Stats.
Matured to level 100, maritime pine reaches 276 HP native / 240 invasive and 38 / 59 ATK, and its DEF climbs to 44 — as a tree it hardens into a genuine armored wall, deflecting hits rather than just soaking them. Retreat rises to 40 Sun as it roots in, and its tempo has sunk to roughly 1% of cap, so a mature pine is slow and acts last. Maturing buys heavy armor and its bench shield at the cost of ever going first.
As a conifer, maritime pine is in the Specialist succession group. It hits Competitor plants (perennial herbs, shrubs, broadleaf trees) for x1.5 and takes only x0.667 from them; it is weak to Ruderal plants (annual forbs, grasses, aquatics, bulbs), which strike it for x1.5 while resisting its blows. Against other Specialists and the off-wheel Weird group the matchup is neutral. See Weaknesses & Resistances.
Play maritime pine as an anchor: park it as a native to soak hits behind real armor, feed the active plant its bench overshield and its Network shield, and let the sun-fed heal keep it standing. As an invasive its ATK edge and bench splash make it a slow but punishing attacker, tempered by the Faustian self-damage. Economically it is inedible, so any nutrient you feed it banks x1.25 XP toward faster leveling. It fights as a fast skirmisher until about level 3 as a native (around 5 as an invasive), then its bulk takes over — never a reason to hold it back.
Leveling trades speed for power. A plant’s tempo (SPD + INI, the turn-order edge) fades as it grows, while its power (HP + ATK + DEF, net of the rising Sun cost to retreat) climbs. The crossover is the level where power overtakes tempo: below it the plant is a fast skirmisher, above it a heavyweight. Shown for each stance this plant can actually hold — native adds a HP cushion, invasive an attack edge, neutral neither — with the card at its crossover and fully grown at Lv 100.